The Spirit Who Is Working

Concerning the Spirituals

Two readings open this sermon. The first is from our own confession, Article III, paragraph eleven. The second is from the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians. The sermon lives in the space between them — not in contrast, but in continuity.

Our confession says this.

We believe that God is sovereign in the bestowment of all His gifts; and that the gifts of evangelists, pastors, and teachers are sufficient for the perfecting of the saints today; and that speaking in tongues and the working of sign miracles gradually ceased as the New Testament Scriptures were completed and their authority became established.

And it goes on to say this.

We believe that God does hear and answer the prayer of faith, in accord with His own will, for the sick and afflicted.

The second reading is from the Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Corinth. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

Paul’s opening word choice is the key to everything that follows. In verse one he says, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.” That is how almost every English Bible renders it. And it is a fair translation. But if you were reading Paul in the language he wrote in, you would hear something a little different. You would hear him say, “Now concerning the spirituals, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.” The word “gifts” is supplied by our translators to help us along. Paul himself does not use it there. He simply says, the spirituals. Ta pneumatika. The spiritual things. The things that belong to the Spirit.

The distinction matters because it tells us what Paul is actually describing in the chapter that follows. He is not handing us a catalogue of items the Holy Spirit distributes to people. He is opening up a discussion about the workings of the Spirit — about what the Spirit of God is doing, in a congregation, as He accomplishes the will of God through the people who belong to Him. And when you read the chapter that way, the whole picture shifts. It does not shift away from what our confession says. It shifts deeper into it.

Article §11 gives us the bones of this doctrine. Scripture fills those bones out with a living body.

Our framing question is simple. What is the Holy Spirit actually doing in this church, right now — and how does Scripture teach us to live in step with that ongoing work?

The answer comes in three movements. First, what Paul is actually describing when he talks about the spirituals. Second, what we have drifted into instead. And third, what the gospel says to people like us — people who already confess the truth and need to see it come alive.

The God Who Is Working

Before we say one word about us, we have to say something about God.

Verses four through six deliver three parallel lines. “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. There are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”

Paul is doing something very deliberate there. He is mentioning all three Persons of the Trinity in three quick parallel lines. The Spirit. The Lord — that is, the Lord Jesus. And God — that is, the Father. Spirit, Son, Father. And he is tying each Person to a different word for what the Person is doing among us. Gifts belong to the Spirit. Ministries belong to the Son. Activities belong to the Father. Three Persons, one harmonious work, in one gathered body.

And One word in verse four deserves attention before moving on — it will return with its full weight a little later. The word Paul uses there for gifts is the Greek word charismata. It comes from the word charis, which is the word for grace. Charismata literally means grace-things — instances of grace, enactments of grace, grace showing up in concrete form. Hold that word in the back of your mind. When we get to Ephesians four, it will tell us something important about what Paul thinks he is actually describing.

The last phrase of verse six is the key to the whole chapter. It is the same God who works all in all. In Paul’s Greek the verb is present tense. Who is working. Not who worked, past tense. Not who will work, future tense. Who is working — right now, continuously, without pause, in every place where His people are gathered, through every moment of their lives. That single verb is the key to the whole chapter. God is not a God who once acted and is now waiting. God is a God who is acting, at this very moment, in every one of you.

That is not a small thing. It is the most important thing. Because if we miss it, everything else in this sermon will sound like a program we need to run. And it is not a program. It is a report on what God is doing already, whether we notice or not.

The spirituals belong to God before they belong to us. They are what God is doing. They are not what we possess. They are not what we own, or carry around with us, or put on a résumé. They are the moments in which the God who is working all in all works through us — because we are His, and because He is still at work.

When you see that, you begin to see the whole chapter differently. You stop reading it as a personality test. You start reading it as a window into what the Holy Spirit is doing in His church.

Here is what the window shows.

”As He Wills”

Verse seven continues the argument. “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.”

The word behind manifestation is phanerōsis. It means an appearing, a showing forth, a coming-into-view. Paul is not saying that each believer carries around a private Spirit-asset that belongs to them personally. He is saying that in each believer, from time to time, the Spirit Himself is made visible. The Spirit shows Himself. Something happens in you or through you, and the people in the room see that the Spirit of God is alive and at work. That is the phanerōsis. It is the Spirit manifesting. Not a gift being displayed.

And notice the direction of it. For the profit of all. The manifestation is never for the one it flows through. It is always for the good of everyone else in the room. Whatever the Spirit is doing through you at any given moment, He is doing it for your brothers and sisters. The body is the beneficiary. You are the conduit.

Verses eight through ten give us a list. A word of wisdom. A word of knowledge. Faith. Gifts of healings. The working of miracles. Prophecy. Discerning of spirits. Different kinds of tongues. The interpretation of tongues. Paul himself does not linger on the list — it is not the point. It is a survey — here are the kinds of things the Spirit does among you — and Paul is about to drive us past it, straight to the thing that is the point.

Here it is. Verse eleven. “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”

Take that sentence apart with me. One and the same Spirit. One Spirit — the same Spirit — is behind every one of these manifestations. There is no distribution of gifts to specialists, as though one believer had received this kind and another received that kind as permanent possessions. There is one Spirit, present and active, doing all of these things.

Works all these things. Another present-tense verb. Is working. Right now, in the gathered body, the Spirit is doing these things. Not did. Is.

Distributing to each one individually. That is another present-tense verb. Distributing — ongoing, continuous. The Spirit keeps dividing up His working. He hands out, and then He hands out again, and then He hands out again. This is not a one-time event. This is the ongoing life of the Spirit in the gathered body.

As He wills. That is the sovereignty clause. The Spirit decides. Not us. The Spirit decides what, and to whom, and when. We do not inherit a gift. We do not have a gift. The Spirit supplies us — in the moment — exactly what the moment calls for, because the moment is His to govern.

Hold that sentence in your mind, because I am going to come back to it. One and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. That is the hinge of the whole sermon. The Spirit, present and active, distributes His own working among His people, sovereignly, moment by moment, in service of the body. That is what the spirituals means in First Corinthians twelve.

Power Made Perfect in Weakness

If that is what the Spirit is doing — and I believe it is — then the rest of the New Testament begins to light up.

Second Corinthians twelve shows what this looks like even in the apostle. Paul is defending his apostolic ministry against rivals who apparently boasted in their spiritual credentials. And in verse twelve he says, “Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.” There is something historically specific about the apostolic office. The signs Paul points to there — they were tied to the foundation-laying moment of the church, the moment when the Gospel was being carried for the very first time into places that had never heard it. Those signs authenticated something that was happening only once. Our confession acknowledges that, and I acknowledge it with you. That unrepeatable moment is not repeating. The foundation has been laid.

But here is what I want you to see. Even in the apostle himself — the man in whom those signs operated more vividly than in anyone — even Paul describes his own ministry, a few verses down, in language that sounds nothing like a man who possessed a stock of spiritual power. Look at verse nine. Paul has been asking God to remove a thorn in his flesh. And the Lord says to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” And Paul answers, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Do you hear that? The power of Christ may rest upon me. Paul is not describing a reservoir. He is describing a visit. He is describing a moment in which the Lord supplies, at the point of Paul’s emptiness, the strength Paul cannot manufacture for himself. Paul has no stored capacity. Paul has only the Christ who meets him in weakness.

If that is how the apostle describes his own power — if Paul himself, the guy that puts the capital “A” in apostle, operates on the principle of situational supply at the point of need — then how could it be any other way for us? We do not have more than Paul had. We have exactly what Paul had. We have a God whose strength is made perfect in our weakness. We have a Spirit who distributes, in the moment, what the moment requires. And we find ourselves, again and again, carried by a grace that was not in us the hour before. Ephesians four tells us what Christ actually gave His church when He ascended — and who He sent to make that gift live and move in the lives of ordinary believers.

Verse seven. “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

Every word in that sentence is carrying weight. To each one of us. Every believer, without exception. Grace was given. The verb is passive, because grace is never something we generate or earn; it is received. According to the measure of Christ’s gift. The amount is determined by Christ Himself, not by our worth or our effort. And now comes the question that turns the whole passage. What exactly is Christ’s gift? What did the ascended Lord actually give to His church when He distributed the spoils of His victory?

Paul does not leave us guessing. In the very same sentence, he has already told us. Not a gift that comes packaged alongside grace. Not a gift distributed out of a larger reservoir of grace. Grace itself is the gift. Christ’s gift is grace. And grace is what each of us has received, in the measure Christ Himself determined for us. That might sound like a small clarification, but it changes the whole shape of the chapter. Once we see that Christ’s gift is grace, we stop looking for some other, more specialized thing the verse might be distributing. The gift of the ascended Christ to His church is not a list of spiritual specialties handed out to a privileged few. The gift of the ascended Christ is grace — given to every believer, measured by Christ Himself. Every Christian, in every station of life, is already a recipient of Christ’s grace-gift. Paul writes about the depths of this grace more openly in Romans than anywhere else in his letters, and we have to listen to him there before we can understand what he means here. In Romans chapter five, verse twenty, he says, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” The word behind abounded much more is a piling-up word, a super-abounding word, a word that says grace does not merely match what sin did but pours past it, past any counting, past any limit we could set. Two verses earlier, Paul calls it the abundance of grace. A few chapters later, in Romans eight, verse thirty-two, he reasons with us this way: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” That is one of the great arguments of the New Testament. If God has already handed over His own Son, then every other gift He could possibly give us is, by comparison, a smaller gift than the one He has already made. And near the end of the same letter, Romans eleven, verse thirty-three, Paul finally lays down his pen and worships: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

That is the Paul who writes Ephesians four, verse seven. When he says according to the measure of Christ’s gift, he is not measuring with a teaspoon. He is measuring with the fathomless measure of the Lord who gave His own Son and, with Him, freely gives us all things. The measure of Christ’s gift is the measure of Christ Himself — and Christ is inexhaustible. What you and I have received in this grace is not a ration. It is an unsearchable deposit. It is more than we will spend in a lifetime of ordinary stations, more than any single moment could ever call for, more than we could find the bottom of if we lived a thousand years and kept drawing on it. The grace given to you in Christ is not in danger of running out. It is not carefully portioned against the day you might need it. It already is — and will always be — more than the moment in front of you requires.

But grace is not a substance that simply sits inside a person. Grace is the living favor of God in action. Grace was always meant to move. And that is why, in the same ascension moment, Christ did a second thing that belongs inseparably to the first. He poured out His grace on every believer. And He sent the Helper.

Before He went to the cross, our Lord told His disciples what would happen after He ascended. John 14:16-17, 16:7.

“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — the Spirit of truth. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”

Christ’s promise is unmistakable — a Helper sent to walk permanently with His people, working the grace He had already given them into the ordinary fabric of their ordinary lives.

The architecture of the Christian life emerges from these two acts accomplished in a single ascension moment. The grace is already in the saint — measured out by Christ Himself. The Helper is already with the saint — sent by Christ to action that grace into concrete ministry. Neither is enough without the other. Grace without the Helper would be a deposit no one could spend. The Helper without grace would be a worker with no material. But together — grace and Helper, gift and Actor — every Christian becomes a place where the Spirit of God is taking Christ’s grace and working it out, in the moment, through the willingness of an ordinary saint in an ordinary station. One gift. One Helper. One saint. One moment. That is the whole architecture of the Spirit-empowered Christian life.

And that is the knot that ties this whole sermon together. The spirituals of First Corinthians twelve are not a separate topic from the grace of Ephesians four. They are the same reality described from two angles. The spirituals are what it looks like when the Helper takes the grace Christ has already given a believer and works it through that believer’s willingness, in a specific moment, for the good of the body.

That word from verse four — charismata — now carries its full weight. Grace-things. Enactments of grace. Paul could not have told us more plainly what he thinks he is describing. The charismata of First Corinthians twelve are not a separate spiritual commodity. They are grace in action. They are what happens when the Helper takes the grace Christ has already given His people and works it out in specific situations, through specific saints, as He wills.

Paul’s logic in Ephesians four continues the same movement. Verse eight quotes the sixty-eighth Psalm. “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” Christ the conqueror, distributing the spoils of His victory — which we now know means pouring out His grace on every member of His body and sending the Helper to work it.

And then verse eleven. “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.”

Here is where we have to read carefully, because it would be easy to stop halfway through Paul’s sentence and miss what he is doing. It would be easy to hear verse eleven and conclude, these men are themselves the gift of verse seven — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, these are what Christ handed out to the church. But Paul does not stop at verse eleven. He keeps going. Read verses eleven and twelve together, because they belong together. 

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

The logic is unmistakable. Christ’s gift to the church is grace — already given, to every believer, being actioned by the Helper. And because Christ intends for that grace to actually flow out through the lives of His people, He also gave His church a set of equippers. Apostles. Prophets. Evangelists. Pastors. Teachers. These men are not the grace. They are not the Helper. They are the equippers Christ placed in His church so that ordinary saints would be trained, pushed, and compelled into the kind of life in which the Helper can actually work the already-given grace out into action.

The station-holders are trainers. They teach the Word. They open Scripture. They disciple believers. They call out sin and they call out calling. They push the ordinary Christian toward the ordinary work of ordinary Christian ministry — knowing full well that when the saint steps into that work with willingness, the Helper Christ sent will already be there, actioning the grace Christ already gave, doing through the saint what the saint could never do alone.

Christ’s gift is grace. The Helper is the One who works it. The equippers are the trainers. And the saints are where all of it lands.

Verse sixteen is the capstone of the argument. From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

The phrase effective working is the word energeia. It is the same root Paul used in First Corinthians twelve, verse six — the God who works all in all. Paul is tying the two passages together with a single thread. The God who is working all in all in First Corinthians twelve is the same God whose effective working grows the body in Ephesians four. And the place where that working happens, Paul says, is every joint. Every part. Every one of us. The body grows because, in every joint of it, the Helper is taking Christ’s grace and working it out, in the moment, through the willingness of an ordinary saint.

And the pastoral consequence of seeing this rightly is enormous. It means that every one of you, from the youngest child in the body to our oldest saint, has already been given the grace of Christ. You do not need a special allotment. You do not need a specialty. You do not need to wait for a spiritual inventory to tell you whether you have been included. You have been included. Christ has already given you His grace — measured out by His own hand — and the Helper He sent is already at work within you, ready to take that grace and work it through your willingness, in the station God has placed you in. Home. Workplace. Friendship. Neighborhood. Church. The Helper is not waiting for you to become more. He is waiting for your step. When you step, you will find that the grace Christ gave you is already moving through you, because the Helper Christ sent is already at work in you, and the effective working Paul speaks of is already doing its share through the joint of the body that you are.

The Abiding Ask

Which brings us, naturally, to prayer. Because if the Spirit is present and active, then prayer is not an appeal to a distant God. Prayer is the ongoing speech of a people who live inside His present working.

Our Lord puts it like this in John fifteen, verse seven. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

There are two conditions there, and they belong together. Abide in Me. That is relational. It is a life of continuous communion with the risen Christ — walking with Him, depending on Him, bringing every corner of your day under His presence. And My words abide in you. That is doctrinal. It is a life in which Christ’s own words, the Scriptures, are the governing voice in your mind and heart. Those two go together, because you cannot separate them. The Christ we abide in is the Christ who speaks. The Scriptures we abide under are the Scriptures He gave.

And when those two conditions are in place, Jesus says, “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” That is not a blank check. That is the natural shape of a life so submerged in Christ that the things the believer desires have already become the things Christ wants to do. The abiding believer asks for what God is already moving to accomplish, and God accomplishes it. That is not magic. That is communion.

The point is that prayer is not a second thing the Christian does alongside living in step with the Spirit. Prayer is what living in step with the Spirit sounds like out loud. A church that believes in the present working of God will be a praying church. A church that has quietly stopped believing in His present working will be a church that has quietly stopped praying. The prayer life of a congregation is a very accurate thermometer of its pneumatology.

According to His Will

First John five brings the same sovereignty language into the register of prayer. Verses fourteen and fifteen: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

Two phrases belong next to each other. John says, according to His will. Paul said, in First Corinthians twelve, as He wills. One sovereignty. Two expressions of it. The same Spirit whose sovereign willing governs the distribution of His working among His people is the same God whose sovereign willing governs the prayers of His people. Nothing slips. Nothing contradicts. The praying believer and the serving believer are standing in the same river of divine activity, asking for what God is already doing, and doing what God is already willing.

And this is where Article §11’s second clause comes alive in a very particular way. James, the brother of our Lord, writes it down in the plainest possible terms. James chapter five, verse fourteen. “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.”

That — right there — is what a church operating on the present-working principle does when one of its members is sick. It does not wonder. It does not delay. It calls the elders. It anoints. It prays. And it trusts the Lord to raise up. Not because the elders have a gift of healing stored up inside them like a battery — but because the Lord is still hearing the prayer of faith, and the Spirit is still actively at work among His people, and the God who is working all in all is the same God §11 teaches us to trust.

Article §11 already teaches this. It does not leave us with a withdrawn God. It gives us a God who still hears, and still answers, and still raises up — through the ordinary, living, Spirit-filled ministry of an ordinary, living, Spirit-filled church. The second clause of §11 is not a footnote. It is the whole point of §11’s resolution. The first clause clears the ground of one mistake; the second clause plants the garden of what the Spirit is actually doing in the meantime.

And what the Spirit is actually doing is more than enough.

What We Have Drifted Into

I’m speaking broadly of the global Church right now when I say that we have drifted. I do not mean that we have drifted into obvious heresy. I mean that we have drifted into a quieter thing, a subtler thing, a thing that looks orthodox from the outside and yet has a slow anesthetic effect on the soul.

Here is the drift. We have treated the Holy Spirit as a dispenser of assets rather than as the living, present God actively working in us.

We have treated the Holy Spirit as a dispenser of assets rather than as the living, present God actively working in us.

This is what the drift has looked like.

It has looked like this. We catalogue gifts rather than seek the Giver. We take the inventory. We want to know what ours is. We read the lists in First Corinthians and Romans and Ephesians, and we ask, which of these belongs to me? — as though the point of the lists were to put a name tag on the believer. And then, once we have decided which item we own, we begin to live as though the Spirit’s work in us has been completed. He handed us the item; we carry it; we deploy it when occasions require it. And the God who is working all in all becomes, in our daily imagination, a God who once worked and is now waiting for us to deploy the asset He left us.

It has looked like this. We outsource ministry to the specialists. We decide that some of us got the gift for visitation, and some of us got the gift for teaching, and some of us got the gift for hospitality, and if you did not get one of those, then ministry is someone else’s job. And slowly the body stops being a body. It becomes an audience watching a few people do ministry on its behalf, while the Spirit’s distribution to each one individually as He wills goes quietly unconsulted.

It has looked like this. We have prayed less. Not because we are unbelievers. But because, quietly, in the back rooms of our hearts, we stopped expecting God to be actively at work. We do not say that out loud. We would not want to say it out loud. But we have started to believe that the work is mostly up to us now, and prayer becomes a kind of polite acknowledgment that God exists, rather than the desperate, confident asking of people who know that He is here, doing things.

It has looked like this. We have imagined our own station — our work, our home, our neighborhood, our calling — as something we handle in our own strength. Because, after all, if no spiritual gift was officially issued for this particular corner of our Monday morning, then it must not be the Spirit’s territory. It must be ours. And we have walked into some of the hardest moments of our lives without even asking the Spirit who indwells us to do what Paul says He does — to supply, in the moment, what the moment requires.

Do you hear it? None of that is heresy. None of it would get anyone put out of membership. But all of it is drift. And drift has a cost. The cost is a congregation that confesses a living Spirit and lives like a dormant one.

The Spirit Has Always Worked This Way

The remedy begins with seeing that this is not a problem with the Spirit. It is a problem with our memory.

The Spirit has always worked this way.

Exodus thirty-one records the Lord’s instructions for the tabernacle — the dwelling place He will meet His people in. “I have called by name Bezalel,” He says to Moses, “and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.” A craftsman. A man with hands. The Spirit of God comes upon him for the task. When the tabernacle is finished, the text does not say Bezalel carried around a permanent craftsman’s gift. The text says the Spirit was upon him for that work.

Judges three: Othniel delivers Israel, and the text says, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel.” The Spirit, upon him, for the deliverance.

Judges fourteen: Samson meets a lion, and the text says, “The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart.” The Spirit, upon him, for the moment.

First Samuel ten: Saul prophesies among the prophets, and the text says, “The Spirit of God came upon him.” First Samuel sixteen: David is anointed, and the text says, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” Again and again, the pattern is the same. The Spirit comes upon a person for a task, and works through them, and brings the work of God to pass.

That is the Spirit of the Old Testament. A God not only enthroned in heaven, but actively present in the dust of His people’s lives, empowering, again and again, for the thing that needed doing in that hour.

Then came Pentecost. And something magnificent happened. The Spirit did not change His character. The Spirit did something new about His dwelling. The Spirit moved in. The upper room received the promise; the tongues of fire rested on the disciples; and from that day on, the Spirit of God indwells every believer in Jesus Christ as a permanent presence. You are His temple. I am His temple. We are the dwelling place of the Spirit of the living God. That is the inauguration of a new era. It is what Joel promised and what Jesus announced.

The situational empowering pattern did not disappear when the indwelling pattern arrived. The two patterns are combined. The evidence appears in the very same disciples who received the Spirit at Pentecost, in Acts chapter two — the very same disciples — are later described, in Acts chapter four, verse eight, as being filled with the Holy Spirit when Peter stands up to speak before the council. And a few verses later, in Acts four, verse thirty-one, after they pray together, the text says, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. Those people were already indwelt. They were already His temple. And yet, for specific moments, the Spirit filled them again for specific works. The indwelling is permanent. The empowering is situational. Both at once.

That is the pattern of the whole New Testament. The Spirit lives in you, and the Spirit works through you, and the working is not the same as the living, and neither the living nor the working has stopped.

What Article §11 confesses in its first clause is that the historically specific authenticating signs of the apostolic era are not being repeated. And that is true. Hebrews two, verses three and four, tell us that God bore witness to the first proclamation of the gospel “with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” That bearing witness was tied to the specific moment of the gospel’s first arrival. Ephesians two, verse twenty, tells us that the household of God was “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.” The foundation has been laid. We live on that foundation now. We do not need it laid again.

But living on a foundation is not the same as living without a builder. The foundation has been laid. The building is still going up. And the builder has not put down His tools. Every day, in every station, in every joint of this body, the Spirit of God is doing the same work He has been doing from Bezalel onward — supplying, in the moment, what the moment requires, according to the will of the Father, for the glory of the Son, through the people who belong to Him.

What has been withdrawn is one historically distinctive expression of His work. What has not been withdrawn — what could not possibly be withdrawn — is the Spirit Himself.

And the Spirit Himself is more than enough.

Step Into the Station

The gospel precedes every imperative. What has already been done must be seen clearly before anything is required.

Christ has already ascended. Christ has already poured out His Spirit. Christ has already set every believer into some station of His body. And the Spirit who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead — that Spirit — is, at this moment, actively at work in every one of us. We are not carrying around a stored-up asset. We are carrying around the presence of God. And that presence is not asleep. He is working. Right now. In every saint who belongs to Him.

The Spirit of God is at work in you, right now.

That is the indicative. That is what is true about you, and about me, whether I feel it or not. It is true because Christ rose from the dead and poured out His Spirit at Pentecost, and that Pentecost has never ended. You belong to a church inside of which the Spirit is the primary actor, and you are invited to live in step with His working.

So let me tell you what that looks like on Monday.

Step into the stations God has set before you. Your marriage. Your children. Your job. Your neighbor. Your small group. Your classroom. Your team. Your conversation with the cashier. Step into the station. And trust the Spirit to furnish, as you walk, what each moment calls for.

Do not wait for a Spirit-moment to arrive before you step forward. Step forward into the station, and you will find the Spirit already at work there.

This is how the early church lived. They did not wait for an unusual sensation. They walked into ordinary rooms and found God already at work ahead of them. Peter and John walked up to the temple gate, and there was a lame man, and the Spirit met them at the gate. Paul walked into Philippi, and there was a riverside prayer meeting, and the Spirit met him at the river. Ananias walked into a house on Straight Street, and there was a blind man named Saul, and the Spirit met him in the house. None of them waited for a feeling. They went. And the Spirit went with them.

So go. Go faithfully into your ordinary week. And every time a moment comes that is bigger than you, do not pretend it is not. Do not grit your teeth and power through it in your own strength. Ask. Ask the Spirit of God to supply what the moment requires. That is what a faithful joint in the body looks like.

And when one of our own is sick, we will not wonder what to do. Article §11 tells us, and James tells us, and the Spirit of God has not changed since James wrote it down. We will call the elders of this church. We will anoint with oil. We will pray over one another. We will trust the Lord who still hears the prayer of faith. Because that is what we confess, and that is what we will do.

The antidote to the drift is not striving harder. The antidote is not a better cataloguing of your gifts. The antidote is trust. Trust in the present working of the living Spirit, in the ordinary stations of ordinary life, moment by moment, week by week, until the Lord comes back or calls you home.

One more word belongs here before the sermon closes. The same Christ who ascended to pour out His Spirit on us is the same Christ who is, right now, interceding for you at the Father’s right hand. Romans eight, verse thirty-four, says it. Hebrews seven, verse twenty-five, says it. When you pray this week, you are never praying alone. The Son of God is praying with you. The Spirit of God is at work in you. The Father of mercies is listening to you. The whole Trinity is bent toward you in love. That is not a doctrine for the sermon. That is the Christian life.

The One Who Works in You

Ephesians four, verse sixteen, one final time. 

From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

That sentence is the sermon in miniature.

Every person in this body is a joint. And in every joint, the Spirit of the living God is effectively working. Right now. Today. Whatever your station — child, student, worker, spouse, parent, grandparent, elder, helper, friend — you are the place where the Spirit of God is effectively working today. You already have what you need. Not because you once received a spiritual capacity to deploy on your own, but because Christ has given you His grace — measured out by His own hand — and the Helper He sent is already at work within you, ready to work that grace into every good work God has prepared for you to walk in.

So go out from here in rest. The weight is not on you. The weight rests where it has always rested — on the Spirit who is working all things in all, in every joint, in every station, in every hour of the coming week.

When the Word is opened, we will teach. When a neighbor needs love, we will step in. When one of our own is sick, we will pray. And we will find, every time, that the Spirit has stepped in ahead of us.

May the Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, keep you in His love this week. May the Father, the God who is working all in all, work mightily in you. And may the Holy Spirit, who distributes to each one individually as He wills, supply in abundance, in every moment, the good He has already prepared you to walk in.